Posts tagged "Motor Vehicle Accidents"

New York City is compact. The island of Manhattan alone is just 23 square miles in size and is, by the latest count, home to more than 1.5 million people. By comparison, the most developed land mass in Wisconsin's Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, Madeline, is nearly twice as large and home to just 300 year-round residents.

Car crashes happen all across New York City. Notice we don't say accidents happen. That's because in many instances, collisions aren't accidents at all. Someone was negligent or reckless and that's what contributed to events playing out as they did. Getting to the bottom of liability and holding accountable those responsible can be a challenge without experienced legal help.

Most of us have heard, read, or perhaps participated in, discussions about the incredible benefits increased driving automation could potentially bring in terms of highway safety. These benefits are largely due to the fact that a large number of automobile accidents are caused by driver error of some sort. Automobile automation could largely eliminate such accidents once it becomes mainstreamed.

In our previous post, we pointed out that the trucking industry is heavily regulated. One set of truck safety regulations that has received a great deal of attention in recent years is the hours of service rules. These rules are intended to address the problem of truck driver fatigue. Although driver fatigue is not exclusively a problem among truck drivers, it is a particular concern in the trucking industry due to the long hours trucker drivers spend on the road and the pressure to maximize productivity.

In any personal injury case, the plaintiff is required to present sufficient evidence to prove each element of the claim against the defendant and to support damages sought in the claim. Personal injury or wrongful death claims based on allegations of negligence generally require proof of four elements: legal duty; breach of legal duty; causation; and harm. Essentially, the plaintiff has to show that the defendant failed to abide by his or her legal obligations and thereby caused harm to the plaintiff.

Previously, we began looking at the use of government accident reports in personal injury litigation. As we’ve noted, government accident reports can have value for plaintiffs in personal injury or wrongful death litigation, but the issue of admissibility needs to be adequately addressed. Not everything written in government accident reports is necessarily admissible at trial.

In our last post, we mentioned a recently released NTSB report which provided numerous details about a crash out in Florida last year involving a Tesla Model S. As we noted, the report shows that the driver was found to have ignored warnings provided by the Autopilot system, but the NTSB provided no definitive conclusion about what actually caused the crash.

A government report concerning a high-profile accident that occurred last year in Florida was just released, providing new information about the accident but without coming to any definitive conclusions. The report, which was released by the National Transportation Safety Board, concerns a fatal crash involving a collision between a Tesla Model S and a large truck.

In our last post, we began discussing the need to address the issue of liability in light of increasing motor vehicle automation, and the advisory guidance released last year by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. As we noted, the agency’s guidance leaves a number of regulatory matters squarely in the hands of the states, including automobile insurance regulation and liability, but a more defined approach to regulation has yet to be implemented at both the state and federal level.

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